BBC avoids term 'inherent in Muslim society'.

[Teddy Bear]

Another gem of an observation from Melanie Phillips which clearly shows the BBC mindset.

The closing of the BBC mind

Astounding omission from an item by Caroline Wyatt on yesterday’s BBC Radio Four Today programme about Ni Putes Ni Soumises, the courageous French Muslim women’s organisation that campaigns against violence by Muslim men against Muslim wom en. The item simply excised all references to Islam. It presented the issue instead as a problem of ‘north African immigrants’, of the French banlieues, of the ghetto. It was said to be all about the way women were perceived to uphold the ‘honour’ of ‘the ghetto’ and ‘the family’. But which ghetto? Which family? And by whom? All immigrants? All north Africans?

Of course not. The issue of honour is a specifically Islamic issue. It does not apply to, say, north African Christians or north African Animists. It is specific to those North African immigrants who are Muslims. The women were rightly quoted as saying that this violence towards them is then also expressed towards the outside world. But the reason for this violence was simply left dangling. Listeners were left none the wiser. Yet ‘ni putes ni soumises’ translates roughly as ‘neither sleepers nor submission’. It is not ‘north African immigrants’ who regard women as either sleepers or having to submit – such attitudes are specific to the Muslims among them.

This is from the Ni Putes Ni Soumises website:

To counter these problems, many young people in the ‘quartiers’ have turned to religion, in most cases Islam. In the fundamentalist, often distorted version of religion to which many of the youth adhere, women are inferior to men in every respect. At the same time, violence in the housing projects turned inward. In the 1980s and early 1990s, teen-age boys burned cars and scribbled graffiti to protest against marginalization and to attract the government's attention. Today, says Orain, boys are often belittled and discriminated against in jobs and in school, so they take out their aggression on those they can still dominate: girls. 20 years ago, women in the ‘quartiers’ were either ‘closed in and had no rights’ or were ‘considered prostitutes.’ But today, she says in an interview, ‘they also suffer from rapes and violence.' In fact, rapes in the housing projects have gone up by between 15-20% every year since 1999, according to government statistics, and women's-rights advocates estimate that unreported rapes make the figure even higher. Members of the group say girls are subjected to a hidden system of surveillance, in which neighbors, older brothers or even other girls scrutinize them everywhere they go. Any deviance -- smoking, hanging out with boys -- is promptly reported back to their parents. First and foremost, the girls are judged by their clothes, which, according to the code of the cites, are expected to cover up their bodies. Most girls drape themselves in baggy athletic jackets and track pants. Those who don't conform are harassed, called ‘prostitutes’ and ‘sleepers.’ So girls dress conservatively and make complicated detours to avoid walking in front of groups of boys. Some even resort to wearing a veil -- not necessarily because of their Muslim beliefs, but as a way to protect themselves, says Orain.
How is one to describe such an egregious distortion by the BBC, and at such a time? It is worse than censorship. It is an attempt to alter thought itself.


Posted by melanie at January 19, 2006